Photography Exhibit Honors Survivors Of Japanese Internment Camps

February 19, 2015

Insight with Beth Ruyak
Capital Public Radi
February 19, 2015

Today marks the anniversary of Executive Order 9066. On this day in 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt issued the order creating military zones which would become internment camps for thousands of Japanese Americans, Italian Americans, and German Americans. Over 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry were relocated to internment camps, including 70,000 American citizens. In 1982, the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) issued its report called Personal Justice Denied. The commission found that mass incarceration of Japanese Americans could not be justified by military necessity, but was largely motivated by “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.”

We’ll talk about an exhibit at the California Museum called Gambatte, which features portraits of Japanese Internment Camp survivors then and now. We’ll speak with Sacramento Bee photographer Paul Kitagaki Jr. and Wayne Hironaka. Wayne is an internment camp survivor and a docent at the California Museum; he’ll share his personal experiences.